The Most Fertile Woman in the World

I am the most fertile woman in the world. The words circulated through my head, and then seemed to fill up my abdomen. Three days late. My god, that can only mean one thing—somehow, someway the ovaries have done it again.

I think that most women have this moment once a year or so. Maybe you are at that stage in life where there is a whisper of hope in the words when you mutter them inside your head.Three days late sounds like a new, beautiful beginning. Hope abounds.

Or, maybe you mutter the words while dread rakes through your midsection like an expanding embryo. Three days late. Fuck. No, don’t even think that word—that’s what got you into this mess.

There is a plethora of reasons why a woman might not want to be pregnant. Women like me have had our kids, we’ve got our youngest out of diapers, and freedom is growing by the day. Not to suggest that the baby years are not wonderful in their place and time, but once they have passed a woman begins to morph again into…a woman. A woman that happens to be a mother, but a woman none-the-less. Between pregnancy and a child the age of two-years-old, a woman is more a mother, than a woman. Are you confused now?

Anyway, three days late. Everything had been so timely and reliable up until then. Now it does not matter how very careful a woman happens to have been. It does not matter if the odds of pregnancy are very slim. We have that three days late thought process that goes something like this:

Well, the odds might be slim—like act of God kind of slim—but it could happen. In theory. How do I feel? Headache. Hmm…suspicious. Oh no! I woke up this morning craving garlic bread sticks! Yesterday at the grocery store I smelled a woman from the other end of the aisle! Yep, this is it.

Having been someone that has gotten pregnant twice on the first try, I generally take it a bit further with something like:

My god, I must be the most fertile person on earth. These ovaries can’t be stopped. They laugh in the face of all birth control attempts. “Somehow, someway” is their mantra. They are bound and determined to continue populating this overpopulated earth. It is a wonder the things have not found a way to reproduce asexually.

We women in these states of mind generally wonder around the house in a flurry, doing mindless things while we work off the tense energy. The floor is swept, dishes done with no recollection—just thinking about those devious ovaries. The movement helps clear the mind.

A clear thought comes up. I know my body. I’m not pregnant. But somewhere out there are thousands of women doing the same thing—power sweeping the floors while muttering somehow, someway. To the ones with hope in their voice, I wish you luck.

To the rest, here is some comfort: most of us only have to play this fertility game for about fifteen more years.

_{That didn’t help at all, did it?}